THE THEORY OF BAIT-SPINNING. 97 



and total loss of bait. We do not hold personally 

 with minnow fishing in temporarily discoloured water. 

 It is too sure a way for real sport. Absolute cer- 

 tainty in the pursuit of game destroys the keenness, 

 and takes off the edge, so to speak, of one's feeling 

 of enjoyment when success is in no way dependent 

 upon personal skill. With the finest tackle, in clear 

 water and weather, there is more real satisfaction to 

 be derived from the successful capture of a fine, well- 

 fed fish than in forty such taken by unfair means. 

 The minnow spinner, in clear and rapid streams, 

 should always, where practicable, cast up-stream, 

 bringing the bait across and down by a judicious 

 working of the rod from the wrist. As a rule, draw- 

 ing against stream should be avoided. It is un- 

 natural for a deformed or sickly fish to attempt any 

 feat of the kind ; and not only this, when spinning the 

 natural minnow the force of the current causes the 

 bait to assume a very unnatural attitude in the water, 

 especially when the movable lip hook is used ; 

 therefore, up-hill spinning should be avoided. The 

 angler should ever remember that the secret of 

 success lies mainly in the motion of the spinning bait. 

 The theory of bait spinning being founded upon the 

 well-known propensities of the heavy fish for weakly 

 fry, which accounts for the otherwise unaccountable 

 fact of the well spun bait being seized from the very 

 midst of a shoal of living minnows. The peculiar 

 forms of many substitutes for natural minnows act 

 detrimentally as regards hooking fish. Take the old 

 turn-tailed family of artificials for example. Watch 

 H 



